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Dream and Imagine
Nurturing the fragile link between the arts and public education
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Business New Haven
6/10/2002
By: Denise D’Onofrio
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It is clear that many people in Connecticut and elsewhere believe that there is a place in any superior school curriculum for the arts. But it is equally evident that, due to financial constraints in the public education system, arts are being sacrificed.
Jonathan Paier, president of Paier College of Art in Hamden, views this as a national trend and prefers not to point a finger at any one individual or group.
“It is simply a fact of life today,” Paier says. “In order to pick up this slack, if only to promote awareness, several communities have responded. New Haven's response is by far one of the finest, involving a broad spectrum of creativity and expression.
“We are answering a national mandate to keep such things alive,” says Paier, “things that are at the core of what makes us the greatest free society anywhere.”
New Haven and its neighbors have the opportunity to show their support for arts and education by attending the seventh annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas this month (see story, page 10).
Mary Miller, director of the festival, expects upwards of 150,000 attendees this year. A Quinnipiac University survey says a majority of the 2001 event's audience came from New Haven, one-third from other states and a measurable number from overseas.
“We are rapidly becoming known as one of the most important festivals in East Coast America,” says Miller. With hundreds of artists scheduled to perform and artist representation from 26 countries, the festival's overall economic impact on the state has topped the $20 million mark in previous years.
Miller recently worked with young artists through the English National Opera and directed a large festival in northern Scotland that celebrated Nordic work in the UK. She was contacted about the New Haven festival via e-mail in late 2000. “I liked the idea of a festival with a strong international component along with a strong community and educational components,” Miller explains.
Barbara Feldman, the festival's director of community programs, firmly believes the arts are essential to life. “No one can have a complete and fulfilling experience without arts,” she says. “Every school child should have extensive exposure to all of the arts.”
Feldman says that Nilda Morales, arts supervisor for New Haven public schools, “is very helpful in connecting us with teachers. Our relationships with local schools are well established, but we continue to build new ones through our work with Nilda.”
Morales can't say enough about New Haven's rich arts bounty. “We have wonderful relationships with all the arts schools and organizations,” she says. “Arts motivate children to stay in school and it has been shown that schools that emphasize arts education as a core subject outperform other schools in Mastery and statewide tests.”
Feldman says that local artist involvement in the festival has grown over the years. “The festival is not only about international artists, but more of an emphasis on embracing the whole community.” Feldman explains that local artists are encouraged to submit proposals to be part of the festival. Still, the event's local-artist component, “The Edge,” has been scaled back from previous years, and the festival Web site (www.artidea.org) does not include listings of the local artists' performances.
“Visions & Voices” is one of the festival's annual community-based programs celebrating the cultural richness and extraordinary heritage of New Haven neighborhoods.
Connecticut artists and New Haven residents join forces to create art installations for neighborhood spaces. The new works will be celebrated at the festival and throughout the summer.
Participating neighborhoods include Dixwell, Dwight, Fair Haven, Hill, Newhallville and West Rock. Resident artists featured include Bianca Kay Anderson, Sosivu Caldwell, Meg Bloom, Ellen Pankey-Cooper, Walter James and Reginald Augustine.
The arts have been a public-policy victim in the past, acknowledges Frances T. (Bitsie) Clark, executive director of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven (www.artscouncil-newhaven.org).
“But a different attitude is developing towards the arts,” Clark explains. “While many of the newer schools don't have room for stage performances and arts and music classes, there is a tremendous amount of catch-up going on.”
Not long ago the arts were viewed as frills and the education focus was on reading, writing and math only. Arts were the first to be cut when budgets contracted. But more recently a major learning connection has become evident between the arts and classroom learning. “The more artistic stimulation a child receives, the better their ability to think and learn,” explains Clark.
The Connecticut Alliance for Arts Education (CAAE) (www.ctalliance.org) works to promote and strengthen all of the arts as a basic and integral part of a well-rounded education for students statewide.
According to Linda Ferguson, executive director of the Vernon-based organization, each public-school student should have access to education in dance, music, theater and the visual arts. She notes that each discipline is a distinct body of knowledge and skills.
“The arts are central to all learning and vital to literacy, and are important to every child's well-rounded educational experience,” says Ferguson. “Arts remove educational boundaries by providing opportunities for more than one solution or answer. Student exploration through the arts promotes problem-solving in other disciplines like math and science. The arts teach students to see, imagine and listen, which are prerequisites for reading, writing and understanding.”
CAAE has lobbied for the past four legislative sessions to effect change in high school graduation requirements at the state level. Currently, students are required to secure one full credit in the arts or one credit in vocational studies. “This allows students to leave high school without a single arts credit,” says Ferguson.
Paier College of Art has grown from a commercial art studio of 17 students and one instructor in 1946 to a four-year college with more than 300 students and 75 instructors. Founded by Edward and Adele Paier, the college is now run by two sons of the founders, Jonathan and Daniel Paier.
“It is important that others understand that the arts and culture and very much alive and a significant part of New Haven life and community,” says Jonathan Paier.
Paier offers programs in five disciplines: fine arts, graphic design, illustration, interior design and photography. Within each discipline, four-year bachelor of fine arts (BFA), four-year diplomas and two-year certificates are offered. In photography, a two-year associate degree and two-year diploma are offered. A four-year BFA offering is anticipated in this field in the fall.
According to Paier dean Ronald Nonken, illustration has built the school's reputation, while graphic design and photography are the two fastest-growing programs.
“We are blessed here in Connecticut with many wonderful liberal-arts schools,” explains Nonken, “but our focus has been in the professions, which separates us from the liberal-arts colleges.”
Illustration instructor Vladimir Shpitalnik continues his participation in the festival and has enlisted Paier students Derek Stratton, Arthur Vitello, Raymond Daye, Stephen Golia, Thomas Ryan, Doll Barnes and Jessica Guercia to help with his project. Shpitalnik is heading “500 Faces: A Community Construction.” He has transformed the motif of New Haven's original nine squares into a community construction and will welcome all to paint landscapes, portraits and fantasies on the surfaces of 100 large blocks constructed by the Eli Whitney Museum.
“The sculptures draw the community and environment together in an urban environment,” Nonken explains.
The blocks will be reconfigured each day during the festival and be permanently constructed at the end of the festival, according to Feldman.
Another local art school is the New Haven Ballet School (www.newhavenballet.org). Artistic director Phillip Otto says that dance in all its forms is a bridge that can unite a community. Skills honed at his school, Otto says, take students far beyond the stage.
“It is an exciting time in New Haven,” says Otto, former director of education and outreach at Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. The school recently completed a six-week residency at Vincent E. Mauro School in New Haven as part of its “Discover Dance Outreach” program. The residency culminated in a performance by 60 fourth-graders last month at New Haven's Shubert Performing Arts Center.
“The chance for 60 fourth-graders to set a goal and go through the process of designing sets, rehearsing and achieving that goal gives them satisfaction and boosts self-confidence,” says Otto. “Ballet gives students structure, discipline, exercise and teaches them about the body. Dance can be connected to any curriculum a child is learning in school. Learning through movement is a great educational process.”
While Otto looks forward to expanding the “Discover Dance Outreach” to more schools through his work with Morales, he believes that arts and education are beneficial only if a consistent, long-term presence with the students is maintained.
“We'd like to stay on with Vincent E. Mauro School and add other schools. I believe arts education is very important,” he says. “If you don't educate the student as a whole, then what good is that education?”
Otto will lead a choreography workshop as part of the Edge event during the festival. “Anyone can walk in off the streets and learn some ballet,” he says.
The Edge, according to Miller, is an established “fringe” program that is now being added to the festival for the first time this year. The Edge (formerly Art on the Edge) is modeled after the Edinborough festival, where local performers wanted to reach the large audiences attending the Scottish event.
“It is all about opportunity,” she says. “We made an open call to all local artists.”
Hamden-based Young Audiences of Connecticut (YAC, www.yaconn.org) is a non-profit organization focused on broadening the imagination of young people in schools across the state. According to executive director Robert Friend, the organization has a 55-artist roster.
“We visit the schools and provide an arts curriculum,” explains Friend. “Our artists excel in dance, music, storytelling, theater and visual arts.
“But their understanding goes beyond the arts,” he adds. “They know how to interact with the students and have a sense of the issues going on in the school such as prejudices and bullying. Our artists are playing a major role in developing the whole child.”
YAC offers schools various residencies and workshops. The Performance Plus Workshop is a ten-day artist residency during which the artist works with the class on an art project. The artist also works with the teachers, allowing the teachers to extend the art into their everyday classroom once the artist is gone.
“At the end of the workshop is a culminating piece which allows the students to share their learning,” says Friend. “These workshops give the child the ability to dream and imagine.”
Friend's organization also nurtures the Framework Percussion Ensemble, a world drumming and communication residency led by artist Peter Haas. Haas teaches students drumming as a communications tool.
“Art workshops and residencies in the schools are very important,” says Friend. “Art can help students grasp a concept in a different way. We are heading toward a focus that will build residencies and workshops as a major part of what we do.”
YAC has several new programs to be introduced in September. Arts Partners will pair artists and school staff in an attempt to bring arts into the schools. “My Friend's Shoes” and “I'm Just a Super Hero,” created in partnership with the Connecticut Anti-Defamation League, are programs for the K-6 level that address diversity and bullying in the classroom. These workshops will be followed up with a diversity training workshop for the teachers presented by the Anti-Defamation League.
The organization also hopes to commence a residency program in conjunction with Pilobolus Too, an educational division of the Manhattan-based Pilobolus Dance Theater (www.pilobolus.com). The program links math, science and technology with rhythm and motion. Depending on its funding status, this program could also be available to schools in September.
“One aspect of the residency will link movement of dances through video by using computer,” explains Friend. “This will be a great program for the schools as there aren't many for kids that integrate math and science with arts.”
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